Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding: Canada's New Role in Building Capacity Abroad

Abstract

The Post-cold war era presents many new challenges to international peace and security, since wars are now not only fought between states, but within them, and civilians are now more often the actors and targets of violence. Traditional militaristic peacekeeping needs to be revamped in order to deal with these non-traditional conflicts. Furthermore, it is recognized that political, social and economic instability can deepen conflicts, and new innovative strategies for conflict resolution need to combine non-militaristic capacity building, or "peacebuilding," in these areas, along with militaristic peacekeeping. It will be argued in this essay that Canada should continue to be a forerunner in international peacekeeping (under the guise of the UN), and that Canada is particularly well-suited to pair its military strengths with non-governmental organizations and civil society actors in these new holistic peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations.

La periode suivant la guerre froide presente plusieurs defis d la paix et d la security internationale, puisque les guerres d'aujourd'hui ne se font pas entre etats, mais plutdt d I'interieur d'eux, et que les civils sont maintenant plus souvent acteurs et cibles de violence. Le maintien de la paix traditionnel doit etre ameliore afin de traiter ces conflits non-traditionnels. De plus, c'est reconnu que I'instability politique, sociale et economique peut approfondir des conflits, et que les nouvelles strategies de resolution de conflit doivent combiner le developpement de capacites non militaires, ou de consolidation de la paix avec le maintien de la paix militaire traditionnel. On argumente dans cet essai que le Canada devrait continuer d etre a I'avant - garde du maintien de la paix international (sous la tutelle de I'ONU), et que le Canada est particulidrement bien adapts a joindre ses forces militaires avec ses organisations non gouvemementales dans ces nouvelles operations de maintien de la paix et de consolidation de la paix holistiques.